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Buffalo has the most hockey viewers per capita and best TV ratings out of any US market. Even factoring in population size (viewers * ratings), they're still pretty high (though I don't have recent numbers on this). Growing the TV contract is Bettman's job #1. The league needs Buffalo and it's viewers, along with all the Buffalo ex-pats across the US.

Pretty much. Everyone wants to say "WE SUBTRACTRED 27g" but how many we did subtract is far more complicated and the Sabres biggest issue is goals against. Edmonton scored 259, Florida scored 252. Buffalo scored 269 with a terrible PP. Edmonton allowed 236ga, Florida allowed 223ga. Buffalo allowed 289. While everyone is yelling about dropping from 269gf down to the 250's I am looking at this trying to figure out how we cut out 30+ goals against. Peterka was no where near bad enough defensively to be solely responsible for such a swing when you count in his goal scoring. That's not the point of this post, but the equation isn't just "we gotta replace Peterka's goals" which is what it primarily has become. Let's set JJP aside for a minute. If we eliminated 30 goals against, that only gets us to the level of Detroit, 259ga. Only 1 team last year had more than 259ga and made the playoffs, that was Montreal. The next closest team to make the playoffs is at 239ga. That means realistically Buffalo needs to cut out around 50 goals against to make the playoffs. That's 17% reduction in goals against. Outside of the season we decided to play defense and then pay UPL, another mistake, we have had 300, 290, and 289ga. The good defensive season we had 244ga. This team has had almost the exact same ***** defense (meaning team defense, forwards, defenders, and goalies) since 2021 Y'all wanna be upset about Peterka, I can be on board with that. I struggled with the trade and ultimately ended up saying it probably makes us marginally better. But at the end of the day Buffalo's biggest problem is an abysmal team defense under Ruff and Wilford, and atrocious GT. UPL alone accounts for 20ga that a league average goalie would stop. Levi gets you another 9 (he was atrocious last year). Unless goaltending and defense improve, we'd have to score 300 goals to outscore our mistakes and have a playoff look. It is why not qualifying JBD but keeping Bryson is such a damnable offense. I doubt very much taking out Peterka, Cozens (Cozens was awful at defense), Clifton, Jokiharju, and 4thliners and replacing them with Kesselring, Timmins, Doan, Norris, and different 4th liners moves the needle enough in that goals against category to get us where we want to be. Lyon alone isn't good enough and won't be given enough games if UPL flames out again. Levi, who knows when or if he'll be ready. We can handle losing the few goals in aggregate I think we probably sacrifice in the equation of Peterka Cozens Clifton Joker (47goals last year) v. Kesselring, Doan, Timmins, Norris (40goals last year). The issue is are we going to play defense and use these supposedly better defensive players to reduce the goals against by 17% to actually get us somewhere.

I understand why you feel like you do when smugness is exhibited by outsiders. However, what's more upsetting is not the smugness directed toward this puny franchise as to why it happens. It's embarrassing that when Toronto plays Buffalo in our home arena that there are more Toronto fans. They literally have taken over the building so much so that if you were watching the game and didn't know where it was played you would assume that it was in Toronto. Our franchise has been degraded. And it was done by its own regime.

Isn't the Sacramento stadium a temporary situation until the Vegas stadium is built? When you get to the point where you are comparing your owner with the worst owner in sports (as you describe it), then you are at a bad point. The sad, if not ironic, thing about the Sabres and its financial situation is that if the owner had a serious team, the cash/flow and revenue return would put him in a healthier financial position. Penny wise and dollar foolish. Buffalo and the surrounding area are a terrific hockey market. The owner squashed it by how he has mangled this franchise.

Mrtka, Helenius, and Östlund are the only 3 Sabres to make Wheelers top 100 prospects list. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6469634/2025/07/14/nhl-top-prospects-ranking-2025-schaefer/

Went thru this with my Oakland A’s. Somehow their A-hole owner convinced the other owners he was in a small market in a city in the SF Bay Area and continued to get revenue sharing until they saw he wasn’t spending any on the team. Then for some reason they started giving it to him again. Now, they’re playing in a Triple A stadium here in the Sacramento area rent free and they have the highest average ticket price in MLB. As bad as you guys may think Terry is, John Fisher is definitely one of the worst sports owners of all time.

I don't think there's a parallel universe where Benson is worse at defense than Peterka. Edmonton had 259 and Florida had 252 I think. The problem is we don't have good gt and have a questionable defence system.

Probably not. I do t think the Trump administration fully regains support after this. Social media such as Bongino’s FB page look split in the comments.

So basically two shifts in the model: you used actual player games missed histories instead league averages. you didn’t adjust for typical growth/decline patterns. And we still can expect an offence in the league’s top half without Greenway and Norris getting healthy. Interesting. Maybe there’s more there than it appears.

That is a whole lot of what ifs there but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm pretty sure I know the ending to this story as it's been replayed over a decade and a half now and like my good friend at Shawshank once said "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane".

Of course not, he’s actually saying the opposite. He saying there’s no simple direct correlation between JJ’s goals and wins and losses. There’s a butterfly effect with every move: Maybe Tage slumps to 25 goals without JJ Maybe Power explodes for 60 points with Kesselring Maybe Rosen takes JJ’s slot and scores 28 goals too, but with better defence Maybe Benson and Kulich don’t score any more than this year, and with elevated minutes are even worse at defence than JJ was.

Losing Peterka hurts but I agree with @LGR4GM in this regard. The team is at best fractionally better with a trade of offensive pop for a bit more responsible play in theory. I understand being jaded, I understand not trusting anything they do but I can’t exactly dwell on that while also trying to enjoy and cheer for my favorite team. So I much rather approach this with a glass half full and possibly delude myself into believing they have a legit shot at the playoffs because anything else destroys the entire premise of being a fan. I’m high cynical in many aspects of my life while working with government/finance stuff so I can’t approach this with a similar mindset or I’ll go completely nuts.

I looked at the Sabres top 20 skaters averaged their number of games played over 3 years (where available) and goals/GP. For players with less than three years, I used their last 2 seasons if full time (like Benson and Kesselring). For the rookies, like Kulich and Doan, I took last season and just used their goals/GP * 75 games. I also only used the last two seasons for Norris. I arrived at only 254 goals.

Are you saying 30 GA are a direct correlation to JJ Peterka? If so I find that very hard to believe since that is what your defense is there for.

Well said

I think our goal total will go down. Not specifically because of Peterka but in part. We're not better, just different.

Peterka had a positive team relative plus minus last season. They didn't need to ship out Peterka to fix how they defend... it's not one or the other. Capable front offices address their weaknesses without sacrificing their strengths.

Hope is not a strategy.

Dahlin and Thompson I guess 😛

I think Power is going to have a bit of a jump this year, mainly in consistency. Benson will have a small jump as well. Quinn is the wildcard.

I worry Thompson might lose a few goals without a Peterka level player in the lineup. I also fear a regression from Zucker. Hopefully Quinn can be what we thought he was, and hopefully Norris, Kulich, and Benson all chip in. I've been burnt far too many times to get my hopes up on any of this though. And we still need at least one of Levi, Lyon, or UPL to be a real NHL starting goalie. Unfortunately, I'm especially jaded this isn't going to happen. It'll be exciting however if it does.

It's obviously more nuanced but how many players has Adams kept hold of that have more or less asked to leave?

Pretty sure you're giving Adams "we only want guys that want to be here" a bit too much to heart.

He always has leverage here; love the kid but to get him to sign originally allegedly required promised time in the NHL during his "1st year" Now while he's certainly embraced his time in Rochester now; bringing in Silovs would of just pissed him and/or his agent off. Complain enough and Adams would trade him, but he can't since he hinged much of his past 5 years on developing Levi to be our 1G and he isn't one to deviate

Yeah but Levi has value still in any trade, and lets say Levi comes and is better than him, you can still get same value back for Svilos. Im sure we thinking the same, but im drunk and well ***** you kevyn.